


#9: Broken

by theskywasblue



Series: 100 days, 100 prompts [20]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Harm to Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9821213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: Part of 100 days, 100 promptsFigured this was a good excuse to continue fromhere





	

Ben looks very small, sitting in the run with the dog’s head in his lap. According to Cara, it’s heavily drugged. When the first bag of fluids is done running in, she’ll go into surgery, to remove the mangled leg.

“You can’t save it?” Kyle had asked, leaning over the x-ray, counting the three, blocky fragments of bone.

Cara had shrugged. “Oh sure, maybe. Plates, pins, an external frame. But he’ll recover and lot faster, and live just as well without it.”

He wonders if she’s told Ben yet.

And then there’s the other, more interesting object that Kyle had spotted on the x-ray, the reason Cara had called him: the small calibre bullet that had bounced off the dog’s shoulder blade and sat there, festering.

“Cara says you found him under your porch.”

Ben nods, his long, dark hair sweeping back and forth over his cheeks. The dog whines and shifts a little, and Ben shifts with him, as if feeling sympathetic pain.

“You mind if I go up there, take a little look around?”

Ben strokes one of the dog’s pointed ears with slow curls of his hand. “No,” he says, slowly. “I don’t mind.”

Cara’s already prepping for the surgery. Kyle finds her diligently scrubbing her hands, wearing what he’s always considered her game face from back in their high school days, when she could lap anyone else on the track, including him.

“You think he’s going to be okay?”

“Oh sure,” she says, adding more soap to her hands, working a plastic scrubber brush against her nails with an enthusiasm that makes Kyle wince. He puts his hat back on for an excuse not to look too hard. “They’re a lot tougher than we are.”

“I mean Ben.”

On that subject, she’s understandably more cagey. “You know him,” she says, with a choked-off laugh. “He’s always okay, until he isn’t.”


End file.
